BOCC strikes standing rules

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

The Bonner County board of commissioners voted Jan. 21 to eliminate a set of 12 standing rules from the regular business meeting, arguing that they both hampered public involvement in government and were ultimately unenforceable. The rules gave meeting attendees and elected officials a code of conduct and outlined procedures for discussion and board votes.

“The standing rules were created by a prior board without adopting an ordinance or codifying such rules, and since one board cannot bind a future board, I find that the standing rules are not enforceable,” said Commissioner Brian Domke, who brought the motion forward.

“If somebody on a past board wished to in some way modify how we do our business, it’s my opinion they should have gone through the process of amending that county code, and they chose not to do so,” he later added.

Bonner County commissioners Asia Williams, left; Brian Domke, center; and Ron Korn, right. Photo by Soncirey Mitchell.

Domke argued that the standing rules “don’t exist” and that continuing to include them on the agenda “serves no purpose.”

The standing rules were implemented by a board vote Dec. 19, 2023 under the direction of former-Chair Luke Omodt, who, along with former-Commissioner Steve Bradshaw, had a contentious working relationship with current-Chair Asia Williams. During her first meeting as chair after Omodt’s resignation in September, Williams made a motion to strike the standing rules. The motion died without a second from Bradshaw or Commissioner Ron Korn, who served the remainder of Omodt’s term.

At the Jan. 21 meeting, Korn questioned whether voting to remove the rules from the agenda actually nullified them, and maintained that some of the rules were worth preserving.

“I would like to see some of these standing rules put into our resolution or county ordinances. My recommendation would be to keep them until that has been accomplished because by getting rid of those now, we would lose some of the rules,” said Korn, later clarifying that rules No. 1, 2, 7, 8 and 9 had merit.

No. 1 required that agenda items follow the BOCC Meeting Agenda Submission Procedure and that all action items include an attached memorandum — which Williams argued commissioners and staff already did.

No. 2 clarified the powers of the chair and their ability to enforce “state statute, county ordinance and standing rules,” adding that the meeting’s sergeant at arms could assist.

No. 7 banned “personal or ad hominem attacks,” while No. 8 stipulated, “Any ruling of the chair can be appealed and overturned with a majority vote.”

Finally, No. 9 established the National Association of Counties The Right Way to Run a Meeting as the guide for meeting norms.

Domke suggested that if Korn found those rules valuable, he should make a motion to add them to the county ordinance in the future.

The two men agreed that many of the rules were “redundant” given Bonner County Code Title 1 Chapter 2, which gives proper procedures for BOCC meetings. Still, Korn argued that Chapter 2 “fails to address personal attacks,” adding, “It’s not mob rule. This is a republic form of government, not a democracy.”

Domke did not receive a written legal opinion on his motion; however, he did speak with Deputy Prosecutor Bill Wilson, who also gave testimony during the Jan. 21 meeting.

“We haven’t had standing rules for the majority of my time with the organization, and the meetings were always able to move forward in an orderly way without them. I think they were created in response to an increased, you know, temperature in some of the previous meetings,” said Wilson, adding that the commissioners could still require the procedures as “an administrative nicety” without written rules.

Domke further added that the standing rules were “contrary” to Chapter 2.

“Referencing Robert’s Rules [of Order] is the most egregious part in my mind because what you’re doing is saying that we’re adopting Robert’s Rules when Chapter 2, as written for the conduct of the meetings, is different from Robert’s Rules. So then, which one takes precedence? Which one do we follow?” said Domke.

Korn pointed out that the standing rules never actually reference Robert’s Rules. The previous board did vote to adopt Robert’s Rules on Jan. 18, 2023, almost a year before the standing rules.

“I’m going to be a little bit more plain,” said Williams. “The standing rules came on this agenda because of conflict with people. It wasn’t because prior to that board that meetings weren’t conducted well. If you look at post-September 2024, our meetings have shifted drastically, correctly, in the direction that recognizes, accepts, invites and allows for meaningful input from members of the public.”

Williams stated that the standing rules — and county ordinance — violated the right to free speech by banning “rude and derogatory comments,” adding that citizens should be “critical” of government officials when need be.

“This meeting has always been a meeting of the people, for the people to address their elected officials whether you have a positive comment or a negative comment,” said Williams.

“The standing rules continuing to be on the agenda is a memory of a period of time in Bonner County meetings that I would like to forget. We are educated, competent people in this room — whether elected or citizens participating — and for me, the standing rules were being used as a way of restricting the people from me,” she later added.

Members of the public expressed similar concerns, but Korn argued that it was the previous chair, not the standing rules, that restricted the public.

“Anything can be abused, even Chapter 2 can be abused by the chair if the chair decides to,” said Korn.

Domke proposed holding a public workshop to determine what, if any, amendments should be made to Chapter 2 but maintained that the board should eliminate the standing rules in the meantime.

Domke’s motion to strike the rules passed with Korn dissenting.

Domke then made a separate motion to remove the 12th standing rule, which required attendees to sign up to make a comment before the start of the meeting and created a separate form for those on Zoom. Anyone attending remotely had to have a Gmail address and state the topic on which they wanted to comment.

“Treating members of the public who participate remotely in the same manner as those who participate in person would create an equitable approach to facilitating public comments,” said Domke during his explanation.

“I appreciate this item. I’ve never signed up on that so I don’t know what’s all entailed,” said Korn, adding that public meetings usually require people to sign in whether or not they intend to speak.

Korn suggested removing most of the form’s fields and simply having people state their name and county for the public record, but Domke argued that virtual attendees could do that verbally as they would in person.

The motion to strike the 12th standing rule passed with Korn abstaining.